A U.S. effort to discourage immigrants’ repeated attempts to enter the country illegally by dropping them back in Mexico hundreds of miles away from where they were caught has been sharply scaled back after producing relatively modest gains.

Thirty-four young migrants are in U.S. custody after trying to enter the United States without documents in the latest round of what is becoming a new tactic in confronting what they consider unjust U.S. immigration policies.

A Mexican national says he has been barred from entering the United States to bury his 10-year-old son, a U.S. citizen who died Tuesday in a house fire in northeastern Pennsylvania that killed three other people.